Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp's (THSRC, 高鐵) shuttle transist system and reimbursement mechanism for delays were the top concerns in a Consumers' Foundation (消基會) survey published yesterday.
Almost a year after its launch on Jan. 5 last year, the poll found that 62 percent of 2,660 respondents said it was unreasonable for THSRC only to reimburse the full fare when delays were for more than an hour, or to only refund half the fare for delays between 30 minutes and an hour.
An official at THSRC disagreed.
"The railway's reimbursement system for delays is quite reasonable compared to that of overseas railway service providers. Japan, for example, only reimburses train delays of more than two hours. In France, passengers are only reimbursed half the fare for delays of more than an hour," vice president of THSRC's public affairs division Ted Chia (賈先德) said. "Nonetheless, THSRC will still take the foundation's suggestions into consideration."
Despite those complaints, a majority expressed satisfaction with the company's overall service.
The second biggest issue that THSRC needs to resolve, 55 percent of the respondents said, was its transfer services.
Chia said that local bus services do not fall under the company's jurisdiction.
"THSRC's main challenge is that the company does not have the right to operate local bus services. THSRC is currently, at its own cost, providing free shuttle buses at Taichung (
Chia urged the government to allow private companies to operate transportation services, such as nine-seater buses, between the railway stations and the city center.
Another 45 percent found it unreasonable that passengers were required to cancel their tickets at least half-an-hour before the scheduled departure time.
Chia said the rule aimed to protect other passengers' rights to secure tickets and seats. However, he said the company would take all its customers concerns into consideration.
THSRC operated a total of 24,400 trains last year, carrying approximately 15.55 million passengers. Its revenue, as of last November, had reached NT$12 billion (US$370 million) and the firm was expecting to break even this year, Chia said.
"In December, THSRC's total number of passengers exceeded 2 million, up 20.48 percent when compared with November's 1.66 million, and the firm expects to see a higher growth rate in the next two months as a result of the Lunar New Year holiday," Chia said.
For the Lunar New Year holiday, Chia said THSRC would start selling tickets online from midnight last night and was planning to operate 1,500 trains with nearly 1.48 million seats available between Feb. 1 and Feb. 12.
THSRC's other plans for this year include the launch of a telephone voicemail system during the first half to enhance the speed of its service. The company is also in talks with President Chain Store Corp (
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts